


Bottles

by Shay_Nioum



Series: Bottles [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Logan doesn't know how to deal with feelings, Logan-centric, M/M, No Deceit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-09 18:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15274071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shay_Nioum/pseuds/Shay_Nioum
Summary: One day when going to check up on Logan, Patton spies bottles lining the logical side's room. Bottles of all various colors and sizes, Logan assures him that they are nothing, but coupled with Logan's odd recent behavior, is everything as it seems?





	1. Chapter 1

“Logan..what are these?” 

It’s a calm Tuesday afternoon when Patton pops his head into Logan’s room, he had done so merely to ask the other if he wished to partake in a cute puzzle that Roman had just summoned for him. Truth be told, he had also come up here out of worry as well, the last thing that he wanted for Logan to be working himself to the bone, and the logical side hadn’t come out since breakfast.

However, upon looking inside he couldn’t help but to stop and look in awe, it is the first time that Patton has seen the inside of Logan’s room in some time, and yet despite the fact that it had been a really long while, the change of it still surprised him. Not everything looked different, the glow in the dark stars that Patton had given to Logan many Christmases ago was still stuck on the ceiling and walls. Logan still had his bookshelves put up full of all the books that both he and Thomas had read in the past, and even his Ravenclaw rug was there just as it had always been on the smooth wooden floors. 

The only difference that really seemed to stick out was the bottles.

There were dozens of them, all dotting the shelves that Logan had up for years. Yellows, blues, reds, greens, and purples. Primary colors that Patton would have honestly never expected to see in Logan’s room, the logical side had a style, and when he liked his style Patton knew that he liked to stick to it. It was almost blasphemy for him to do anything but that, and yet there were the bottles that were up there as if they had always been up there. Several of them, now that he got a closer look at them had a fine layer of dust on them. They had been here for a while, so how hadn’t he noticed them? 

Reaching forward Patton went to pick one of the dusty bottles up, it had a normal thick glass container only with a cork bottling in the strange substance inside. 

“Don’t touch them!” Logan quickly snapped, his hand instantly wrapping around Patton’s wrist just as his fingers were about to graze the glass bottle, and the expression on Logan’s face held something that Patton hadn’t seen in...well ever. 

Logan’s bottom lip was captured in between his teeth as the logical side chewed on it and his eyes stared back at Patton, just looking into them Patton say something in them, something that felt impossible to grasp as Logan’s eyes drifted away from the moral side’s face. Almost as if he felt ashamed by snapping at Patton in such a way, as he slowly unwrapped his fingers from around the moral side’s wrist leaving Patton to rub at where he had just been touched. 

It was the oddest thing ever, but… Logan’s touch was icy cold.

“I apologize for my unwarranted suddenness, but these hold some of my experiments. They can become dangerous if tampered with, and I don’t wish for you to hurt yourself, Patton.” Logan explained, ignoring the way that the yellow bottle off to the side rocked faintly back and forth as he spoke. He was the only one, thankfully, who noticed it moving. “What was it that you interrupted my work for?” 

It sounded a lot harsher when he said it like that, but it was too late now, and Logan didn’t give a single hint that his own words had bothered him. 

Especially as Patton beamed at him, “You’re forgiven!” The moral side chirped at him the hand dropping from his wrist as he rocked back and forth on his heels like a child all hyped up on sugar. “Do you want to do a puzzle? Roman just summoned one that has a picture of puppies and kittens on it, you look like you could use a break after all.:” 

Looking around himself, it suddenly seemed to have dawned on Logan that he was surrounded by his rough drafts of work that he had been working and working on throughout the day. Some even for things weeks in advance, even so though… 

“I don’t think that I can pull myself away from my work now, perhaps at a later hour I may come down,” Logan suggested, ignoring the way that the indigo-colored bottle rocked on the shelf above his bed when Patton’s bright smile dimmed to a sad smile, not that Patton would ever admit that it was a sad smile at all. “How about...one more hour?” He instead offered, and in response to the beautiful and sublimely warm smile that was aimed at him and only him, the bright fluorescent pink bottle practically trembled on the shelf next to his collection of Doctor Who DVDs. 

“That’s perfect!” Patton’s smile brightened at the promise, it was certainly more than he had expected to get from Logan, and an hour was nothing in compared to the hours he had figured he was going to have to wait. “I’ll make us some lunch while you’re working then.” And as if to tease Logan just a little bit more, Patton leaned in ruffling Logan’s neat slicked back hair. Releasing the curls that Logan so meticulously tried to constantly keep in place, but Patton liked it this way, it was adorable to see the curls flopping in Logan’s face. He wished that he could see Logan like this more often, but he knew that wishing for miracles when it came to Logan was like wishing for Roman to use a little less glitter when it came to anything. It wasn’t going to happen.

So ignoring the scoff from Logan as the logical side immediately went to straighten his hair, Patton turned darting from the room like the childish fifth grader who had just pulled the pigtails of the girl he liked. Slamming the door on his way out.

The bottle on the shelf closest to the door rocked almost mockingly in response to the sudden and rather violent action.

A bright yellow one, the same color as the sunflowers that Roman had once summoned on Patton’s birthday tipped, the curved bottom of the bottle no longer stable as it started to fall from the edge. 

Panic and fear wasn’t normally something that Logan allowed himself to feel, but at that moment, with his messed up hair forgotten, caution was thrown to the wind. As he stumbled at first, jerking his body into action before he suddenly dove for the bottle watching it fall. As the seconds, at first, seemed all too slow before they suddenly sped up again, everything was happening way too fast now.

Especially as the bottle thumped against the end of his fingers propelling it away from his hand and into the wall, the moment it cracked Logan felt it rather than saw it. The moment it broke it felt like someone had shoved a javelin of feelings right into his chest, just to twist it around in order to make the experience as painful as he possibly could. His glasses fell off of his face when he landed although that was the last thing he cared around as he scrambled over, reaching for the bottle, even though he already knew what the end result was. 

A long crack ran through the entirety of the bottle, and the bright color that was once been inside was now gone. To top it off, he ached, his chest ached like nothing he had ever felt before. The bottle tumbled from his numb hands and before Logan knew it, he was grasping at his chest, his mouth open as he gasped for air, only he couldn’t bring himself to make his lungs actually work. His mouth was open and when he opened his eyes again he saw the blurry surface of the floor as he stared blankly out, only it didn’t end there either. As his muscles twitched and spasmed, as if an electric shock had been forced through them at an impossibly high voltage.

_ It doesn’t hurt. _

_ I don’t have feelings. _

_ They didn’t hurt me. _

_ I don’t feel lonesome for being left out. _

_ Words are just words, so therefor what he said couldn’t hurt me. _

_ I’m needed. _

_ I’m wanted. _

_ I’m necessary.  _

The one lie he hadn’t told himself was true, it hurt a hell of a lot more putting it all back in than it had putting those damned emotions and those lies in the bottles. 


	2. Chapter 2

It took actual genuine effort for Logan to not scream out loud and subsequently give the others a heart attack while doing so.

His body felt like a spring that had been pushed down and confined to a tiny box as he curled up into himself on the floor, his teeth burrowed into the flesh of his arm biting down as he felt the scream bubbling up. The pain fortunately enough gave him something else to focus on rather than all of the lies that were burning his insides as his body shook like he was in negative degree weather. Everything felt jittery now, and at that moment the only thing that he felt that he could honestly do was lay there and hope that no one popped in on him and saw this monumental weakness that he was allowing himself at this moment. 

_ At least I’m not crying.  _ Logan bitterly thought to himself, even as the trembling continued he could at least be thankful for that small grace, he hadn’t completely hit rock bottom just yet. 

It took far too long for Logan to get back up to his feet, it took him stumbling and nearly falling down to his knees again before he was finally able to get back up again, and even so his hands were shaking the entire time. He felt absolutely awful, like someone had opened up his chest and placed a lead weight inside before stitching him back up and leaving him to deal with it for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t be dealing with it for long though, that was a nice and comforting thought, because as soon as he could summon a bottle again he was going to, and he was going to seal away every single lie that had made the pain in his chest grow worse and worse. Then everything would be perfect, and he could continue to operate at perfect efficiency.

Looking in the mirror that was fixed to his door, Logan couldn’t help but to cringe at his own reflection. His hair, on top of other things, was once again a mess. On top of the fact that he looked like he had just gotten beat in the fact with a bag of flour after running several miles, given the pale sheen of his face and the cold sweat on his brow. Although he had been able to pick himself back up, and given enough time he’d most certainly be able to look presentable once again. 

Sweeping his unruly and curly hair back and slicking it down with a modest amount of gel Logan leaned into his own reflection pinching one of his cheeks until a spot of bright red could be seen on his pale face. He tried to avoid looking into his eyes as he worked on himself, heaven knew that he looked absolutely dead inside.

“I’m...f-  _ I hurt everywhere _ .” Logan tried to coach himself, it should have been simple to say it, to say I’m fine like he actually was fine and there was nothing wrong with him in the slightest. Yet, as simple as it should have been to get those words out, something else entirely left his lips. Without even thinking, Logan slapped his hand over his mouth, his wide eyes echoing the shock that he felt at that very moment. 

No no no..this could not be happening to him. 

“I’m-” Now before he could even start the word fine more brutal honesty slipped out, “ _ I hate myself _ .” 

Logan could help the words that he had blurted out, and this time the stinging his eyes became all too apparent as the full meaning of those words slammed into his chest, and the fact that it was true above all else hurt even more so. Hate was a strong word, a word that he usually tried to avoid using when it came to any of the others, however, when it came to himself...it was one that felt all too real for him. With no bottle to hold the lies, as well as the brutal truths that he couldn’t handle, he could no longer hide from any of this until it was fixed. 

“Looogan!” Normally Logan would have felt a sharp tang of fear as Patton’s voice called his name from downstairs, he could hear the ting of worry in the moral side’s voice as he called up to him from the base of the stairs. “It’s been an hour, I’ve made lunch. Come on down!” 

_ Oh dear… _

What was he going to do? What was even supposed to do in a situation like this? It would upset Patton greatly to hear all of the things that Logan had kept buried away inside of him, and if..and if the other asked what the bottles were then Logan would have no choice but to tell him. He couldn’t lie until the bottle was fixed, and he didn’t have that time anymore, he had wasted it by sulking on the floor and losing himself to the few emotions that had entered him. 

_ Weak _ . He scolded himself, as his eyes darted all around the bedroom looking for something, or anything to prevent the oncoming question that would come from Patton. Anything to prevent him from having to answer. His eyes trailed over everything, in his room, from the costumes he’d worn previously to his unicorn onesie, when he abruptly stopped at the Sherlock costume he’d worn once in front of Thomas. 

Sherlock...a scarf!

He seized the article of clothing quickly wrapping it around his neck and mouth like he was a dying man wrapping a bandage around a bleeding wound. With little time to waste he snatched up his notebook as well as a pen, this could just work. Grasping it tightly he made his way to the door opening it with a quick jerk of his hand and nearly bumping into Patton the moment he went to step outside of his room. 

Patton’s worried expression almost immediately melted into one of pure relief at the sight of Logan stepping out of his room, truth be told, Patton had thought that Logan was going to ask for a little while longer to work on whatever he had been scribbling before. Although that relief was soon scooted to the side as he spotted the familiar looking scarf hazardously wound around Logan’s neck and face, and he couldn’t help the tiny and yet teasing smile that curled onto his lips. 

“What’s with the scarf Lo-berry? More cosplay?” He teased, just for an inkling of concern to leak into his chest as he watched Logan, rather than replying to him, started to scribble onto his notebook before showing him the words that he had written down.

“I accidentally inhaled something when messing with one of my experiments, my throat hurts. So I cannot talk.” Patton mumbled aloud, and a pout formed on his bottom lip before his eyes darted back up to Logan’s face. “Oh, Logan…” Patton muttered, his hand patting Logan’s cheek, before a warm and tender smile lit up his face. “I’ll make you some tea, come on.”

In the back of his mind, Logan could feel the pink bottle on one of his shelves shaking and rattling as soon as he felt Patton’s warm and soothing touch on his cheek, it felt perfect in every single way. Almost as if he could just sink into that warmth and never let himself come up for air, which was preposterous given that he specifically had that emotion locked up and for a good reason. So instead, he hastily patted the hand on his cheek nodding instead of opening his mouth and letting everything spill out, like a waterfall of word vomit. 

He felt that pink bottle rattling again as soon as Patton cheerily took his hand, leading him down to the kitchen where he had made a bunch of tiny personal-sized pizzas that had faces on them, puppy faces to be exact. 

Why did the moral side have to be so perfect in everything that he did? Instead of seriously considering that question, Logan sat at the breakfast bar, watching Patton warm the water before dipping a tea bag into it. His movements all exact and precise, as if Logan’s health was the exact reason he needed to be serious. The ridiculous thought almost made Logan laugh, except the thought of opening his mouth to make a single sound made him terrified. 

That instead of a laugh leaving him, it would instead be a sob. So he kept quiet, he was at least good at that.


	3. Chapter 3

The taste of the green tea was more than a little bland on Logan’s tongue, but he smiled back at the sweet-hearted moral side, and scribbled a thank you regardless of the taste. Besides, the taste of the tea was completely drowned out when compared to the taste of the pizza that Patton had spent a good hour fixing just for him, in fact, he didn’t even know how hungry he truly was until he was scarfing down the slices of the personal sized pizzas that had pepperonis in the shape of dog’s faces. Sure he’d had breakfast, but then again this was also a pretty late lunch all things considered.

“Hey Lo, what kind of pizzas do dogs eat?” Patton piped up as their legs swung back and forth and they ate their food right next to each other, and judging by Logan’s look alone, and the fact that the logical side couldn’t rattle on and on about how dogs shouldn’t really eat pizza given that they were lactose intolerant and thus dogs don’t really have a preferred kind of pizza. Patton could see all those thoughts within the single look that the logical side had given, and truthfully he wished that he could hear Logan rambling about the facts of a dog’s digestive tract, as odd as it may seem. 

It hadn’t even been two hours, and already he was beginning to miss the sound of Logan’s voice, even with the logical side sitting right next to him. However, with Logan’s attention on him now, Patton knew that he just couldn’t stop without following up the punchline to his joke. So beating down the bubbling gloominess over Logan’s lack of voice, he put on his best and brightest smile. “Puperoni!” He exuberantly exclaimed, his eyes searching Logan’s face for a split second after he had come out and said it. 

Watching Patton chattering to him, even if he couldn’t reply and listening to him rattle off that horrendous pun that otherwise would have made him groan into the depths of the night, still got a pretty visceral reaction from Logan. As he, taking a note from Roman’s book, dramatically clapped his hand over his face feigning a silent gasp of horror, and judging from the multitude of giggles that left Patton. He did pretty good in exclaiming his horror to the puns in a nonverbal way. 

_ See? He’s happy when you don’t talk about how much you hate puns. Maybe this isn’t so bad, they’ve always said that I talk too much. Maybe this experiment can go on for a little while longer. After all, Patton seems to enjoy my lack of vocal interjection. Maybe this- _

The feeling of warmth settled over Logan’s hand, sending his thoughts to a screeching halt before he knew it. Glancing over to who the hand belonged to, Logan blinked a few times as the sensation of the bright pink bottle rattling in his room echoed in the deep recesses of his mind. 

_ Something wasn’t right..something wasn’t right...something..wasn’t..right.. _

“Logan..” Patton began, peering around to look at Logan’s face with a half worried grin on his face, he tapped his fingers against the logical side’s knuckles hoping to elicit some kind of response from the other, even if it wasn’t something verbal. He knew the look that Logan got when he was thinking too deeply about things, and he felt that it was important now more than ever to drag Logan out of his smart brain before he came up with the chemical solution to time travel or something. “Are you alright?” 

That was the kicker, wasn’t it? Logan wanted to laugh at the question that no matter what he couldn’t answer without a lie, if he told Patton the truth then..then what? Would he worry about him? Would he brush it off? Would he...cry? Logan didn’t think that he would be able to handle tears, especially tears from Patton of all people. 

‘ **I am s** ’ Before he even realized it the words that he was writing out where entirely different than what he wanted to say, or was it that he wanted to say the truth, and he was just too prideful. Whatever it was, he hastily scribbled out the words he had started to write out of pure instinct, instead he quickly started jotting down something far closer to the lie.  **‘I am fine.’**

Scooting the paper over to Patton he watched as the moral side’s eyes drifted over the scratched out words, his eyebrows scrunching together for a second before he moved onto the words that Logan had written next. The tiniest inkling of worry started to bubble up again, as Patton lifted his head looking back over to Logan again. The question was written all over his face, Patton was sure that Logan could see what he was about to ask. He had a sinking feeling in his gut, and his gut was almost never wrong. It hadn’t been wrong about Virgil before, and he knew that it most certainly wasn’t wrong now. 

“Logan..” The disappointed tilt of Patton’s head was the only warning that Logan needed, before he felt himself receding inside of his very body. “Is something wrong? You know that you can tell me right? I’m here for you.” While one of Patton’s hands remained on Logan’s, he felt with great accuracy as Patton’s other hand cupped his cheek, and as his thumb brushed over the apple of Logan’s cheek. 

The bottle shook, it was teetering on the very edge, tipping slowly back and forth. Wobbling slowly and then all at once, and then…

**Crash** .

_ EmotionEmotionEmotion...Warmth. Compassion. Desire. Tenderness.  _ **_Love_ ** _.  _

Before Logan even knew it, he jerked his entire body away from Patton as he clutched his hand over his mouth, _ I’m going to be sick..I’m going to be sick…  _ Logan felt much like the bottle that he was teetering as he grasped the wall for support, his stomach was churning, and he felt that any second now he was going to projectile vomit all over the floor. 

“Logan!” Patton’s chair squealed against the floor as he hastily got up, the pure worry and concern on his beautiful, attractive, warm, and-  _ No. No more! _ “Logan are you alright? Are you going to be sick?” Patton’s frantic hands fluttered all around, as if he had no earthly idea what to do, Logan felt his stomach roll at the sight and even more so than before he felt like he was going to be sick.

“I..I can’t deal with this! Too much!” Logan gasped out, his fingers parting just a tad bit to let out that brief but sudden explanation, before he was sinking down. 

“Logan!” The logical side ducked the incoming hands reaching out for him, he wouldn’t be able to keep it inside of him if Patton touched him. The warm touch would be too much, another nail in the coffin, and so he did the only thing that he felt that he could right then. He fled.

When he rose back up, this time it was in his bedroom as his shoulder roughly connected with the wall as he instinctively gagged, this was too much, how on earth was he supposed to handle this much emotion?! Logan’s eyes darted over to the bottle in question, the bottle that had been nestled among all of the other things that he loved. The bottle that had held his adoration for a certain someone, a bottle that was supposed to keep everything sealed away, and...had failed. 

The shards pricked his fingers, and within seconds he had dropped it again. 

_ There’s too much inside of me! I have to get rid of something, something! _

Logan may as well have been walking on a rickety old rowboat with the way that his footsteps swayed and stumbled across the perfectly level floor, although it wasn’t entirely his fault given that he felt like he was both drunk and sober all while suffering from a hangover. It was like someone had put the three things in a blender and set it on high before putting in a dash of instant regret. 

His hands seized the bottle that had held all of his lies, the thin cracks were still there, but unlike a shattered bottle this could still be fixed.

He could work with this..yes he could certainly work with this. 


	4. Chapter 4

Patton felt his hand graze right over Logan’s head, his fingers brushing against the slicked back softness of the logical side’s hair as Logan ducked out on him, stumbling forward with nothing there to catch him, he barely caught himself on the edge of the counter. Picking himself back up though, Patton couldn’t help but imagine the scene over and over again, Logan looking like he was going to be positively sick, the fear and terror washing over the logical side’s face, as well as the pink hue, staining the tops of his cheeks.

Patton leaned heavily against the counter, the thought that had been tugging at him faintly when he had been eating with Logan, was now spinning around in his head like a blurry tango.

_Was Logan really that sick? Why hadn’t he told me? I would have helped him, I would have helped Logan in whatever way I possibly could, he has to know that. Right? He knows that I care about him...he has to. He’s not that blind._

However, almost unwillingly Patton felt his eyes drift over to the book, the book that Logan had been using to communicate to him with. In Logan’s own eagerness to get out and away from Patton, he had left the book behind. The very same book that he had seen Logan jot down a few of his experiments and experiences in, and the familiar yet subtly creeping feeling of dread washed over him like a riptide taking him out to sea.

_Logan wasn’t stupid, he knew that he could come to me if he was sick. So..was if it was something else…_

Guilt racked his insides the moment he even considered picking up the book, this was Logan’s, and yet here he was about to trespass on his personal and very private property of where he kept all of his most private thoughts trapped within the pages. And yet, he couldn’t stop himself as he reached for the well worn pages, the moment that his fingertips touched the cover though, Patton felt himself freeze practically holding his breath. As if Logan would pop up right then and there to accuse the moral side of not respecting his privacy and that Patton obviously didn’t care about him if he was doing this.

The silence stretched through the air as nothing happened. He was alone in the kitchen, and the book seemed to look at him almost mockingly at that fact.

_I’ll apologize when I see Logan again..I’ll apologize._

Patton coached himself, as if that would somehow make himself feel better about what he was about to do, and yet his fingers continued to linger on the cover of the notebook that had constellations doodled all over it. Right then and there he could feel his resolve dissolving away as he just continued to stand there and do nothing, he needed to know, and he knew that he needed to know. So squeezing his eyes shut and curling fingers into a fist, he hurriedly without giving himself a chance to backout, slammed the book open to the first page.

Sketches.

Tons and tons of sketches littered the pages, just looking down at them Patton felt a bloom of awe spreading in his chest as the images of himself doing normal everyday things littered the pages. Unlike Roman’s drawings which were more than often done in a usual cartoon style, Logan’s..Logan’s sketches looked so real. If he looked close enough, Patton could even see the faint dusting of freckles on his nose that Logan incorporated in every picture he had drawn of Patton.

“They’re beautiful…” The hushed whisper left Patton, and for a second he felt ashamed at how surprised he was by this, as he glanced over to the stairs that led up to their rooms. Especially as his fingers brushed over the image of all of them together, with Virgil’s sour well-meaning frown, Roman’s exaggerated pose, and Patton’s...his warm smile that seemed to somehow light up the page with the subtle colors that Logan had added to them.

It was such a shame that when he turned the next page, Patton felt such a crushing sense of disappointment as the sketches seemed to just completely vanish as he started flipping through more and more pages. Instead, they were increasingly replaced with more and more scientific ramblings that had hastily been jotted down as if Logan was terrified that he’d lose his thoughts if he didn’t get them down on paper. Mathmatic equations, chemistry, and astronomy took up a good chunk of Logan’s book and given that Patton had a difficult time wrapping his head around a few, he skipped a few pages. Up until the point that one page and one page in particular stuck out to him.

Bottles.

Sketches of bottles filled up the pages, each of the contents of those bottles a widely varying color as well as size. Green, purple, yellow, pink, red, blue, indigo, and even a deep jet black. The shapes of the bottles ranged from one that looked like a coca cola bottle that was colored red to a short square bottle that had been shaded a pitch black color. Underneath those pictures though, Patton felt any hope and happiness he had previously held onto fade away like an aging picture.

Logan’s handwriting was tiny under each picture of the bottles, and it all stuck out to the moral side. These were one of Logan’s experiments, and yet it was somehow worse than anything that Patton had ever laid eyes on. His eyes drifted over the text before settling on the one that had the earliest starting date scribbled next to the sketches.

**The bottles that seem to hold the red that has appeared, upon further inspection to hold my anger inside of them. What supports this hypothesis is the fact that earlier today, I was once again insulted by the others. To my relief the experiment did work, and I felt nothing, although it was fairly simple to act like I felt peeved towards them. I did, however, feel a direct connection to the bottle solely responsible for holding in that emotion. This experiment has been a success, later I will move on to other emotions to see just how many I can store away.**

A rough and jagged gasp escaped Patton with little to no warning as he clasped his hand over his mouth, his eyes widened behind his glasses as they remained glued to the first recordings of Logan’s experiment. Right then and there he wasn’t sure if he was about to throw up or cry, and yet despite feeling like this he couldn’t stop himself from looking over to the next passage of text that Logan had jotted down just a few days after he had written the first one. It was the blue bottle.

**I have finally come to the conclusion that for Logic to have an emotion such as sadness is completely and utterly useless. As it stands, Patton is the core of Thomas’ emotions, and thus for me to have them would only add to an existing problem that I already cause enough of already. So, I sealed away my sadness which manifested itself as a blue bottle. It worked wonders, the experience proved to be successful when Roman snapped at me this morning, saying one of his usual comments that normally would have made me feel something on the negative spectrum of emotions. So I have decided that with this recent success, the next to go will be envy. As Virgil said, I am the least popular one here, so I should stop getting upset about it.**

Looking over to the bottle that was colored green, Patton felt his eyes watering as only a single word was written under the sketch.

**Success.**

He felt almost possessed to keep reading the entries of Logan’s experiments on his own feelings, like his feet were stuck in drying cement and the only way he would be freed was to keep reading, but could he? Could he do this? It felt hard enough to read the three that he had seen already. Like with each word that Logan had written, a piece of his very soul was being chipped away and turned into the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

“Oh, Logan…” Patton whispered, the words themselves coming out a choked whisper, as the warm salty tears trailed down his cheeks dripping onto the pages of the book.


	5. Chapter 5

**An orange bottle encasing my bitterness or “salty-ness” as Roman would most likely call it, has shown up. It has become increasingly evident that lies are the next logical step in the extraction experiment that I must take when purging myself of all the needless emotions that plague me. Not outward lies, those would be very nearly impossible to get rid of the outward lies that one tells, as recent studies have shown that nearly 60% of people cannot go even ten minutes without telling a lie. Thus the lies I will be sure to get rid of in order to make my mind better, is my personal lies. Without them, I will be able to see the truth under everything that I have been unwilling to see. Without those lies, I can become perfect.**

It was becoming increasingly difficult for Patton to read the scrawled out words that were connected to the sketched images of the bottles, there were too many images of bottles, too many images of the things that Logan had taken out of himself because they weren’t able to see the things that the logical side was dealing with on a personal level. A broken sniffle left Patton as he rubbed away the tears with the palm of his hand, he could feel himself shaking as he carried on. Although considering what the next picture was he couldn’t help the whimpering muffled sob that left him. 

**I hate myself. With the absence of my lies, I can fully and honestly tell myself that without some pathetic naive kicking in and stopping me from thinking such a thing. I hate myself, I am not needed, and I am in fact useless to everyone. As of late, I have had difficulty getting out of bed. I do not want to get up, I want to lay there and do nothing and when I do wake up I have found tears staining my pillow. Upon further research, this is what is known as depression. It absolutely has to go if I am to continue my work as Thomas’ Logic. I have to remain perfect if am to be useful, miscalculations like this cannot be allowed.**

Scrubbing the tears from his face, Patton allowed his eyes to trail down to the black bottle, the next to last. 

**Perfection** . 

Somehow, and in some way, this just made him feel all the worse for it, as he felt another sob shuddering up out from his lips. There was only one last and final bottle left, a bright pink one. 

A familiar one if he recalled correctly, he had seen one looking just like it pushed again all of Logan’s favorite books and movies. It had sparkled when he had entered the room, at first he hadn’t thought anything of it, merely a product of one of Logan’s so-called experiment. Perhaps something that had to do with bioluminescence, but looking down at the picture and the words that would give him a view into Logan’s world he felt terrified. Actually terrified of what he would read. 

His hands were actually shaking so much as he held the book that the words themselves became so blurred that he was forced to set it back down on the marble countertop. This time he didn’t lean back over the book to continue reading it, instead, he backed away from the book walking into the kitchen and grabbing the pot of tea that he had abandoned when he and Logan had started taking. Grabbing a cup he poured a hearty amount before putting it into the microwave, when it came back out it was lukewarm, but at least warm enough to drink as he took several calming breaths. 

_ Logan’s been..he’s been going through all of this without any of us knowing. How could I have known? He..he never talks to us about these kinds of things, he never wants us to know. He acts...He acts.  _ The realization that dawned on him wasn’t exactly a sudden one, but it was like the weight that was on his lungs had lifted off of them, just to immediately resettle on his shoulders instead, Logan, just like Roman acted and put on a show for the rest of them. Only they had never known that it was false, they had never known that it was a lie.

“Logan…” The deep ragged sigh tore at Patton’s insides, like the threads of a quilt coming undone in a spectacular mess of strands and strings. 

Draining his cup of its tepid contents Patton slid back into his chair and dragged the book back over to him, steeling himself for the worst of the worst he read on.

**How on earth is this even possible? This shouldn’t even be a possibility. Roman is the extra romantic, he is the one who is responsible for all of the Thomas’ romantic interactions and anything he feels for other people. So how on earth, am I of all sides able to feel….Love? And for Patton, I can only see how he smiles, how his face lights up after he tells one of his absolutely horrible jokes. I can’t help but to “feel” something warm inside of my stomach, how and why can this be? I am Logic, I am not some side of Thomas that dabbles in these areas of emotions, so how? Regardless, this cannot be allowed to continue, it impedes my natural flow of thought, and interrupts me when I try to think about normal things. This will be the last one.**

The slightest inhale was the only indication of how Patton felt in that moment, that and the moment that he shoved his chair back he had slammed the book shut before he turned to the stairs. He didn’t need a book for what he was about to do. Patton’s hand made contact with Logan’s door with a surprising amount of force behind it, it surprised even him with the amount of nerve he had to come here and bang on Logan’s door like he owned the place. Even so, his facial expression gave nothing away as he waited for it to open up.

The moment that the door opened and revealed Logan’s face, Patton’s eyes darted past Logan fixing onto the bottle that looked like it had been hastily glued together with copious amounts of super glue and normal masking tape. 

“I..Patton.” Logan found himself instinctively blurting out, he felt the heat rising back on his cheek at the sight of the moral side, so perfect, so beautiful, and so warm. The dusting of freckles across the other’s face may as well have been an entire galaxy of stars all perfect in their own way, and all of them having a specific purpose to create the most beautiful and wondrous night sky. He wanted nothing more than to drag his fingers over every dot and make his own constellations out of them. 

“Logan,” Patton’s soft yet firm tenor dragged him out of those lovesick thoughts of his. “How are you feeling.” The moral side sounded so concerned for him, as if he really honestly wanted to know what was going on inside of Logan’s head.

“I’m fine.” The words came out smoothly, the lie slipping off of Logan’s tongue like the sensation of chocolate melting on his tongue. A perfectly believable lie, which unfortunately did not work whatsoever. 

As the next thing he experienced was the warmth of Patton’s hands on his chest roughly shoving him back into his room, in turn, making his shoulder bump back against a shelf on the way there. Patton stalked in after him, his fists clenched and his body wound as tight as a spring. He seemed upset. 

Although that was the last of Logan’s worries as a bland blue colored bottle rocked back and forth at the sudden action, before one of Logan’s incredibly heavy dictionaries thudded against it. A crack but a small one nonetheless was created in the resulting connection. And just like that, yet another emotion seeped back into his person, a soul-crushing sadness cocktail mixed with the fine salts of distress. 

“I’m fine!” Logan choked out again like a dying breath, the words tasted sour on his lips and tongue as the wrapped up bottle with far too many cracks in it rattled and shook like a grenade that was about to go off, taking everything that Logan loved and dear to him with it.

“No, you’re not!” Patton finally screamed, his face was flushed with tears as his distraught expression was aimed at Logan, “You’re not alright, and you are not okay!” Grasping Logan’s shoulders the moral side shook him roughly, as if that would shake the truth into him anymore and dislodge the lies that Logan had been telling himself. “Why can’t you just accept that you are not fine Logan? Why..why can’t you just accept that sometimes…” Patton sniffled, the tears were running down his face even faster as his iron grip held the logical side in place, “Sometimes we all need help, and right now...you need it.” 

Reaching his hands up and gingerly cupping Logan’s face, Patton’s fingers brushed the cold tears away that had chilled on Logan’s cheeks, his hands were no longer grasping Logan’s shoulders instead warmly enveloping him for a hug as he pulled the other in closer and closer. His chin resting on the logical side’s shoulder, it took a moment before he finally..finally felt Logan’s arms raising themselves, as if the ligaments themselves were being controlled by puppet strings. Before they finally wrapped around Patton, and Logan’s face was buried into his hoodies the fabric getting wetter with each passing second as a shudder rolled through Logan’s body, shortly followed by a muffled sob. 

“I..I need help…” He gasped out, Logan’s fingers digging into Patton’s shirt as he clung to the moral side like he was his lifeline, like if he happened to let Patton go, then it would be the end for him. “Please..please…” He gasped out again, “Everything hurts and..” Logan thickly swallowed, feeling his face flush as more tears welled up in his eyes only to instantly be dried by the fabric of Patton’s shirt. “Every moment that I have these feelings inside of me..I..I hate myself. I..” 

Rearing his head back Logan’s shiny brown eyes looked into Patton’s, tears clung to his bottom lashes and Patton wanted nothing more than to brush them away and to never let Logan go. He wanted to ensure the other that everything he felt, everything he felt scared of feeling, was absolutely normal.

“I love you.” Logan’s voice took on a softer and yet somehow even more terrified whispered, as he halfway expected Patton to draw away, or to laugh at the supposed feelings that logic himself could feel for morality. 

Instead, the feeling of warm hands once again cupping his face was what greeted him, and the sight of Patton tearfully smiling back at him was one that made butterflies erupt in his stomach and sweat slick his palms. 

“Well, that’s a relief, because otherwise, I would feel really guilty about doing this.” A wet laugh escaped Patton’s lips without even meaning to.

“Doing wha-” 

Before Logan could so much as get the rest of the words out, warmth descended onto his lips, and his wide bulging eyes stared blankly ahead, as the moral side cradled his face as their lips pressed together. The feeling of tiny kisses being peppered all over his face, from his lips to his neck, had Logan’s grip tightening on Patton pulling him close until they were flush against one another. 

“Because I love you too,” Patton whispered, as if such a proclamation of love was for Logan and Logan’s ears only.

“You…” Logan’s eyes darted all over Patton’s clearly lovestruck face, as he tried to let the mere idea sink in. “You love me?” 

“Yup.” Patton easily replied, popping the P as he did, his eyes were gleaming brightly as he looked up at Logan. As if Logan...as if he was the most important person in the entire universe right then and there. 

The look of dawning realization finally seemed to settle over Logan’s face, “I love you…” He mumbled at first, before he curled his arms around Patton hugging him so close that he lifted the moral side a few inches off of the ground. “I love you!” He declared with a giddy laugh that felt a little unnatural, or at least it would have had he not been basking in the feeling of dopamine and endorphins swimming through his brain. Cloaking him a wave of happiness when he was with Patton. 

“I love you!” 

 


End file.
